Posted 3 years ago on April 6, 2012, 8:42 p.m. EST by kevlar
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Ok folks, there are honest and dishonest of all incomes and wealth levels. There are greedy rich and greedy poor people. Greed, corruption, and fraud are bad whether they are perpetrated by rich bankers or street scammers.

If you want to look at statistics for wealth, try going to http://www.globalrichlist.com/ and put in your income. If you put in $50,000 a year (which is by no means the super rich in the US) you fall into the top 1% of the world population. Do you realize that there are over 1 billion people who live on less than $1 a day!? We all have struggles. But let's get some perspective on what poverty and wealth really are.

105 Comments

The problem isn't greed, corruption or fraud. The problem is that there is a 1% and a 99%. The problem is that there is unfair income inequality.

It is unfair for the top 1% to take most of the income and therefore most of the political power since they didn't earn it and don't deserve it. They don't deserve their incomes because 1) they don't work harder than everyone else, 2) they didn't earn this money from willing consumers in the market, 3) they shouldn't have the power to force the rest of society into poverty or financial struggle, 4) there is no economic justification that requires us to pay them this amount in order for the economy to work well, 5) it makes society undemocratic.

And the income inequality that exists in this country is just as wrong as the inequality between countries.

I did not do anything to earn being born in the US where I can potentially make a good living instead of being born in Liberia where I can never make a good living no matter how hard I try.

The entire world economic system is unfair and must be changed.

The only fair way to allocate income is based on hard work. If a person who is currently in the bottom 1% works just as hard as someone in the top 1%, they should get paid the same.

If a person in Liberia works just as hard as someone in the US, they should get paid the same.

Thank you. A small point and one that only reinforces yours is that one can technically be a part of the wealthiest 1% and not have been earning any income at all. This is possible if one was born into wealth or hit the jackpot with an invention or lottery and has retired (or never really worked like the rest of us) to an unimaginably wealthy lifestyle with nothing better to do than live well or plot some other way to rig the overall system to bolster one's position through politics. Some try to argue otherwise to distract us from the issue. The problem is too few people have too much money, wealth, power, etc. over the rest of us. I don't see this problem abating unless wealth builders (those with knowledge, skills, and ability to work as hard as we all work every day for decades) stop building wealth for them and start building it for ourselves. It would be important to have learned along the way to have the decency to know when to stop hoarding wealth. For me this came when we moved into a decent house in a decent, safe neighborhood and could plan our retirement.

"I don't see this problem abating unless wealth builders (those with knowledge, skills, and ability to work as hard as we all work every day for decades) stop building wealth for them and start building it for ourselves"

I agree. The bottom 99% must unite in a single union and demand change. Income should be allocated based on hard work, not bargaining power.

If they refuse to change the way income is allocated, we go on strike. Without a workforce, every business would go bankrupt. So we just acquire all the businesses through bankruptcy.

An alternative would be to just allow everyone to choose their own economic system among competing economic systems. You can choose the system where income is concentrated at the top. Or you can choose the egalitarian system where income is allocated more equally.

What you are advocating is, once again, force. While I am not opposed to, for instance, estate taxes for those of great wealth (even though those with great wealth aren't stupid and start many years in advance in avoiding a lot of these taxes), I don't see how you're going to force someone to work for the good of everyone except themselves. Many people of wealth can, and do, things with that wealth that benefit us all. Go to your local art museum and look at the list of "patrons" or sponsors. Invariably, they will be people and corporations in the community who basically fund the entire thing. Go visit a cancer ward at your local hospital, and you'll see most times a name attached to it, namely that of the rich fuck who decided to donate $5 or $10 million to build the wing. Such shitheads, those people. Would you rather the Gates or Buffetts of the world hand their money over to the government? See, even as these ultra wealthy liberals cry out about tax fairness, you don't see these guys handing over THEIR money to the government any more than they have to. Gates has a private foundation. He believes he can do more good with the money than the government would.
"Work" is a nebulous term, usually used by liberals to mean cleaning toilets or sweeping a factory floor, work done with the hands and back. The value of "work" is not equal. Some work is more valuable than other work. Some people work smarter, more efficiently, much as a master of the martial arts might render a brute fighter defenseless. Some work that people choose demands a much higher level of stress or danger, and thus are generally more profitable for those partaking. People like hedge fund managers even I would agree should not make $20 or $30 million in a single transaction, however, they should be paid according to the value that their experience and knowledge create. I assure you, they don't get paid that much for very long if they do not produce significant upsides for their firms. We shouldn't have bailed them out, although I see why they did. It should not be allowed to happen again. Break them up if they can affect the entire economy and crash the entire market. I do not have a problem with how people earn their money or how much they earn. The question is by the nature of their business does it influence what happens in others' lives (i.e. the level of control they have over our lives). In general, I believe we have choices in most of our day-to-day dealings. The only thing that bothers me is the health care racket, where the potential costs are enormous and you don't have a lot of control. Everywhere else, from signing a home loan, to buying a car, to ordering phone and internet service, to eating out or buying groceries, you have lots of choices.
I like choices, and I like freedom.

We definitely should "Break them up if they can affect the entire economy and crash the entire market." Perhaps that's the crux of the argument. Many do not see the need to regulate their wealth at this level.

That is the only fair way to allocate income. It is not fair for people who do easy jobs to get paid more than those who do difficult jobs. We do not allocate income this way because we do not have a fair economic system.

Porters in India would not get paid to carry loads on their back because the managers at the company they work for who are responsible for financial performance will find it cheaper to pay a machine to do that work.

You are not following along. Weight lifting is not a job. Hopefully the following will clear things up:

Since the only economic reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to work hard, the only fair way to allocate income is to pay everyone based on how hard they work, not based on how much bargaining power they have. As the socialist saying goes, income should be allocated to each according to their labor.

Differences in income should be limited by law to only what is necessary to get people to do physically difficult or mentally difficult work and to get people to give their maximum effort in performance based jobs.

In that type of economic system, we would use the political process to filter out reasonable, national compensation proposals which determine what jobs qualify as difficult and where differences in income are limited to just what our best scientific evidence says is necessary to be an effective incentive. And then the worker population would vote directly on its approval in a national vote.

If we allocated income in this way, since you would not be able to provide any evidence that shows we need to pay people any more than 4 times more than others, we would be able to pay the top performers $460k, difficult jobs $230k and everyone else $115k.

You are wrong at the very onset. The reason someone get's paid more is because they bring more value to the organization. If my boss started paying me $400k a year, my productivity wouldn''t double overnight, my product wouldn't suddenly become twice as successful. But if my product suddenly captured twice the market share or bought double the revenues, my bonus would reflect that increase. Besides people, at least in more high skilled jobs, get paid to work smarter and not harder. Putting more hours in a job does not necessarily increase productivity. That sort of logic is true only for low skilled jobs.

If only this worked in real life. Bonus's, at least for upper management in large corporations have not been tied to performance. One example, Ken Thompson ex-CEO of the defunct bank Wachovia, trashed that bank and walked away with $24 million dollars for his efforts. Lot's of other examples too numerous to list exist.

The disconnect between job performance and reward, especially in the Financial Services industry is partly responsible for the large income gaps we currently see.

I would have to look into what Thomson's compensation consisted of to make a comment. Lot of the compensation is deferred, some tied to stock price and then there are clauses regarding executive compensation. In my company too exec compensation, including mine, is linked to performance.

The reason why people get paid more in our current system is because they have more bargaining power and they use that bargaining power to exploit the rest of the workers.

If you got paid the incomes I cited above, it would not mean you were more productive, it would mean you were getting paid the full value of your labor. You would no longer be getting exploited. The people who are exploiting you now would no longer be able to force you and the rest of the workers to take a small fraction of what you should be getting paid so that they can take millions or hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of income.

It has all to do with the value of the perceived skill you bring to an employer. It has nothing to do with bargaining power, unless you claim that bargaining power is the education and skill that the worker has. An employer hires you because he sees a value added to the company in what you provide, and then there is a mutual agreement on what you are paid for that value, skill, etc. Experience, education, natural ability, attitude, self drive are all skill sets that employers look for. Some people just have more than others, and they will be paid accordingly, whether it is physical labor or mental labor or both. I fail to see where that is exploitation of others. If I can throw a baseball better than someone else, I can make a lot of money. How would that exploit someone who can not throw a ball at all.

You are paid based on bargaining power, not based on skill or education.

If you were highly skilled and applied for a job that 100 other highly skilled people were applying for, and that job was the only one available, you would have no bargaining power. Companies don't pay more than they have to. You would get paid little for that job because if you didn't take the low pay, one of the other 100 will.

Since the only economic reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to work hard, the only fair way to allocate income is to pay everyone based on how hard they work, not based on how much bargaining power they have.

If we allocated income based on hard work, and we determined we only need to pay people 4 times more to do hard work, every worker would get paid $115k to $460k per year. So when you pay workers less than $115k merely because they have no bargaining power, you are exploiting them.

Your basis applies to the bottom of the labor force where supply and demand works to their detriment, but not applicable to total labor pool. In the other case, if you have a better talent, they will indeed hire you over others, and pay you accordingly. Employers will not just go for least pay when highly skilled workers are available. It is in their best interest to obtain good talent. But when all things are equal ( only in theory) then there would be no incentive for the employer to pay more for one over the other, they would just take anyone. Skilled laborers are never equal, there is always something that makes one choose one over the other. Forget the numbers you are proposing, they are meaningless. It will never happen, and Is a recipe for disaster, inflation, etc. Wage adjustment as proposed just raises cost, and everyone would be back to where they started. All this has been written in previous forums, and has been refuted completely as unworkable. You can never force people to do hard work in a free society. No one would ever agree to the definitions of how hard something is, or how desirable or undesirable a particular job is. Everyone has a different viewpoint, especially when viewed from different socio-economic conditions or classifications. And a majority rule would be inherently unfair. How would you feel if the rest of the world decided what was good for you, as most of us in this country would be viewed as being part of the 1%?

Your - applies to the - of the labor force where supply and demand works to their -, but not applicable to total labor pool. In the other case, if you have a + talent, they will indeed hire you over others, and pay you accordingly. Employers will not just go for - pay when + skilled workers are available. It is in their + interest to obtain + talent. But when all things are = ( only in theory) then there would be - + for the employer to pay + for one + the other, they would just take anyone. Skilled laborers are <>, there is always something that makes one choose one +r the other. Forget the numbers you are proposing, they are meaningless. It will never happen, and Is a recipe for -, +, etc.

Matt. You seem great at cutting and pasting but you have consistently lack the ability to have a conversation or discussion. If you would like to comment, how about a couple of well constructed sentences with some of YOUR opinions. I have previously tried to get you to say something, but for some reason, you fail to do so or go completely off topic with a four word comment. Try again please.

And so what is that? Great, you can substitue characters for words. Any 6yr old can do that. Do you have trouble speaking to others in public? Can you possibly answer anything? I truly believe you are here to see how large a number you can get by up voting yourself and nothing more. You have contributed very little here. So what is your agenda? You comments lack any clarity, are usually completely off topic, you cut and paste others material, etc. again I ask you, what is your agenda. Do not cut and paste or put a link here. Write something with at least a few coherent sentences instead of your poor attempts at poety (don't quit your day job).

"Wage adjustment as proposed just raises cost, and everyone would be back to where they started"

If all we did was increase the minimum wage to $115k, that would cause inflation. But that is not what we are doing. We are also lowering the top pay from hundreds of millions and billions of dollars to just $465k. The amount we are reducing the top pay is exactly equal to the amount we are increasing the minimum pay. The net result is no increase in price on average. This is math 101.

If you have a $15 trillion economy and you only pay out $15 trillion in income, it is mathematically impossible to have inflation. How is the economy going to inflate beyond the $15 trillion if only $15 trillion is being spent? It can't. It is impossible.

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"You can never force people to do hard work in a free society"

All work in a socialist society, including hard work, is voluntary.

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"No one would ever agree to the definitions of how hard something is"

Everyone agrees that skilled jobs that require 4 years or more of science is more difficult than jobs that do not require that. And everyone agrees that physical labor is harder than no physical labor.

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"or how desirable or undesirable a particular job is"

When nobody applies for a job, guess what? It is undesirable. It is not about agreeing, it is about accepting facts, something you are opposed to.

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"And a majority rule would be inherently unfair."

What is far, far, far more unfair is our current system of minority rule.

You are generalizing about the definition of hard work. Of course it is easy to say that college gained skills would be higher than non college skills. But there are literally thousands of job descriptions within every classification you could come up with and there in lies the problem. How do you not see this basic fact. You would have to classify and list every job type and definition of hardness. It is unworkable. And why is it such a problem that someone could make more money than someone else? Why require this cap on wages? If I invent some special product that everyone would like to have, and I produce it, why should i be prevented from making more than your cap? Your proposal has no reward for innovation. One other thing. How can a person making the top wage manage other workers making the same wage? Why would anyone take on this position in a company if there is no incentive to assume the risk and responsibility that comes with the position? Any elevated position in a company comes with more risk and responsibility. You accept that as part of the mutual agreement for getting the higher wage. As I did more complex engineering projects, the risk and responsibility was very high, but then so was the reward. You are removing this in your proposal and this is why it will not work. The risk and responsibility remains but you have removed the incentive to do it!

"You would have to classify and list every job type and definition of hardness. It is unworkable."

It is not unworkable. Watch. I will do it for you now.

The 12.3 million workers in science, computers, engineering, medicine, construction, mining, and farming are the ones who qualify as a difficult job.

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"And why is it such a problem that someone could make more money than someone else?"

If you work harder, and we need to pay people more money in order to get them to work hard, you should be paid more.

The number 1 problem in this country and in this world by a very wide margin is lack of income. But people don't lack income because there is not enough income to go around. People lack income because a very small few at the top unfairly take most of the income, income they did not earn and do not deserve, leaving everyone else with too little income.

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"Why require this cap on wages?"

I don't. Wages should be as high as possible. The top wage amount depends on how productive the economy is.

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"If I invent some special product that everyone would like to have, and I produce it, why should i be prevented from making more than your cap?"

Because you are not working any more hours or working any harder than everyone else. I don't know why you think inventors deserve special pay that allows them to take more income than everyone else.

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"Your proposal has no reward for innovation."

Wrong again. You can get paid up to $460k for being innovative in addition to the satisfaction you get from spending your day getting paid to build your own idea instead of someone else's and the satisfaction of pride of work.

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"How can a person making the top wage manage other workers making the same wage?"

If you are getting paid to manage others, that is what you are required to do. If you don't do your job, you will be fired.

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"Why would anyone take on this position in a company if there is no incentive to assume the risk and responsibility that comes with the position?"

Executive pay will likely be performance based. So it is a job that enables you to earn the top pay if your company does well.

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"As I did more complex engineering projects, the risk and responsibility was very high"

What risk do you take on as an engineer?

It is just not accurate to say we won't have engineers in a system that pays them $230k.

I try to keep the posts to a more manageable length so if you are missing the point i will expand further when this continues. But maybe we should thin out the topic so we can manage a better discussion. I would very much like to continue the discussion but we have run out of replies to each others comments, which makes our discussion hard to follow. maybe in another thread it would be possible. One imprtant point:if you do not understand what the demand curve is, it will be very difficult to have a higher level conversation with you because you will not be able to follow my point. It is a verybasic economic understanding. But to be fair, I will try to go to the link you posted to read what you advocate, and then maybe later we can continue.

In one thread you cap wages at 460k and in another you say as high as possible. You can't have it both ways. Your math 101 does not fit economics 101. Do you understand the demand curve? There are so many holes in your replies, i am not sure where to begin. You are missing the point on most everything discussed. The engineering example shows to me you do not understand even professional type work classifications. Just because you raise the wage of engineers to 230k doesn't mean suddenly you will have more engineers, you have raised all the boats and with it all the prices and costs. The money you conveniently move around for redistribution removes capital from the markets and would raise interest rates due to less available capital. You give no good reason for an innovator to make more money other than to say it is not deserved. And how could you possibly know how hard the innovator worked to design the innovation, when all you can say is that they work the same hours as anyone else. Who is going to be the grand wizard to determine all of this. As for your managing answer, you do not understand the workings of management at all. I would reply further but it is not possible anymore inside this thread. My advice to you would be to learn more about the business world, basic economics, then talk to people that have been in some the many different jobs (all levels) to get some real world knowledge. I think then you will understand better.

I am willing to have a debate with you on this subject. But all you do is just make the same points over and over without giving any reason and you ignore my answers to the points you make. If your response to this comment is to just do that again, I am going to ignore it and not respond.

"In one thread you cap wages at 460k and in another you say as high as possible. You can't have it both ways"

You say that only because you do not understand how economies work.

In any given year you only have so much income to go around. You have produced a measurable amount of goods and services. So in 2010, if we allocated income the way I suggest, the top pay would be $460k.

But over time our productivity grows. If it grew 1% per year, after 5 years, it would have grown roughly 5%. So in 2015 the top pay, if we continue to allocate income the way I suggest, would have increased to $483k.

I want to continue to grow our productivity which means I want to make the top income as high as possible.

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"Your math 101 does not fit economics 101. Do you understand the demand curve?"

So your rebuttal is to throw out some random economics term? Try again.

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"Just because you raise the wage of engineers to 230k doesn't mean suddenly you will have more engineers..."

I didn't say we will have more engineers. I said we will continue to have engineers. Which is true. Paying engineers more doesn't mean people will stop being engineers. And you have no reason or evidence to dispute that.

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"...you have raised all the boats and with it all the prices and costs."

What does that have to with having enough engineers?

But again, for the millionth time, I do not advocate raising the incomes of everyone.

If all we did was increase everyone's income, that would cause inflation. But that is not what we are doing. We are increasing the incomes of some workers. And we are also lowering the top pay from hundreds of millions and billions of dollars to just $465k. The amount we are reducing the top pay is exactly equal to the amount we are increasing everyone else's pay. The net result is no increase in price on average. This is math 101.

If you have a $15 trillion economy and you only pay out $15 trillion in income, it is mathematically impossible to have inflation.

So before you make another claim about inflation again, explain how the economy is going to inflate beyond the $15 trillion if only $15 trillion is being spent.

You can't. It is impossible.

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"The money you conveniently move around for redistribution removes capital from the markets and would raise interest rates due to less available capital."

You have to actually read what I advocate before you can understand it. So before you comment again, read what I actually advocate here:

Nobody does any investing with their own money. Nobody earns any interest in a socialist system. We use public funds for investment.

Investment funds come from whatever the natural savings rate is in the economy. Not everyone spends 100% of their income as soon as they get it. The money that they do not spend is the natural savings rate.

This money would be allocated by the Fed to independent banks for them to invest. Since these are public funds and not the savings of any particular investor, nobody gets paid any interest. So borrowers would not be charged interest.

If the natural savings rate is not enough to meet our investment needs, an investment tax would be levied on the gross sales of companies. The revenue collected would be added to the total investment funds available.

The Fed would manage this and they will be responsible for making sure there was always enough investment revenue available to launch enough new businesses to fully employ everyone.

Meeting the demand for personal loans like mortgages will be slightly different. Mortgages will also be interest free. However, without interest, you need some mechanism to match supply with demand.

If more people want mortgages than there is money available, we would normally raise interest rates. This increases the price of the loan which decreases the demand for borrowing.

In order to get supply to match demand in the system proposed here, we will use the loan repayment term instead of using interest rates. Instead of changing the interest rate, the Federal Reserve will change the amount of days or months required for repayment.

For example, if you borrow $5000 and the current term is 50 months, your monthly payment would be $100. But if the demand for loans exceeds the supply, the central bank may decide to cut the term on that kind of loan to 40 months. Now if you borrow that same $5000 with a 40 month term, your monthly payment would increase from $100 to $125.

That increase in monthly payment would in effect make the loan more expensive, which then cuts down on the demand for borrowing.

In other words, decreasing the loan term has the same effect as raising interest rates - it increases the monthly payment and discourages people from borrowing.

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"You give no good reason for an innovator to make more money other than to say it is not deserved."

I never said innovators shouldn't make more money. Entrepreneurs would have the chance to make the top pay.

We don't need to pay people any more than what is in this plan in order to get people to innovate. And if we did pay them more, if we paid innovators 50 to 50,000 times more than others like the way some get paid today, it would be unfair, undeserved and unearned because:

1) They don't work 50 to 50,000 times harder than everyone else.

2) They didn't earn this money from willing consumers in the market. When consumers purchase a product they are not in any way endorsing the way INCOME is allocated in the economy. Apple fans buy iphones because they think the phone is worth the price. They don't buy it because they believe they should make $80k less at their job so that Steve Jobs can make billions at his. When you pay Steve Jobs $1 billion, that is $1 billion less that every other worker can make. So if consumers had a direct say on how workers were valued, no worker would ever be able to earn thousands of times more income than another worker because they would never be able to convince consumers to take a huge pay cut in order to pay their inflated salaries.

3) They shouldn't have the power to force the rest of society into poverty or financial struggle. When Jobs takes $1 billion in income, that is $1 billion less the rest of the workforce can make. The top 3% take so much of the available income they leave the bottom 97% of all workers earning a below average income and the bottom 50% of all Americans in poverty or close to it.

4) There is no economic justification that requires us to pay them this amount in order for the economy to work well. The only economic reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to do difficult work and give their maximum effort. We don't need to pay people 50 to 50,000 times more income in order to get people to work hard.

5) It makes society undemocratic since their 50 to 50,000 times greater income gives them 50 to 50,000 times more political power than everyone else.

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"how could you possibly know how hard the innovator worked to design the innovation, when all you can say is that they work the same hours as anyone else."

We can determine what is physically difficult work and what is not. And we can determine what is mentally difficult work and what is not.

I do not say the only thing we can measure is the amount of hours they work. Read my other comments where I answered how to measure difficulty.

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"Who is going to be the grand wizard to determine all of this."

I also explained how the compensation plan is arrived at several times to you. There is no grand wizard.

Since the only economic reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to work hard, the only fair way to allocate income is to pay everyone based on how hard they work, not based on how much bargaining power they have. As the socialist saying goes, income should be allocated to each according to their labor.

Differences in income should be limited by law to only what is necessary to get people to do physically difficult or mentally difficult work and to get people to give their maximum effort in performance based jobs.

In that type of economic system, we would use the political process to filter out reasonable, national compensation proposals that complied with the law and then the worker population would vote directly on its approval in a national vote.

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"you do not understand the workings of management at all"

Making claims without any evidence, let alone an explanation, is not persuasive.

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"learn more about the business world, basic economics"

I went to grad school for business which required grad level economics. I worked for the Fed. I worked as an investment banker. And I owned several businesses including a company that manufactured electronics that employed engineers.

For some reason I can not reply to your question below some will do it here. There is some risk with every job we do. You have to think about what you are doing and what could be iacted if you do it wrong. There can be minor consequences (defect part), or in my field, a bridge may fall down, or a project might be delayed due to poor planning which then could cost millions to my employer or company. The level of risk is determined by the different jobs we do, and is always variable. That is just one of the reasons why you can't just generalize as you did above. It is not that easy. And the hardness of the job might also be measured in the strees level your under to make a correct design or decision. Some people do not understand the mental part of work, that there is more than meets the eye on many things and it just can not be lumped together as hard work. The acceptance of accountability and responsibility is very important when understanding why people are compensated differently. Though we like to state humans are all equal, they are not equal in how they perform. Can you see why the equal pay just does not work? Too many variables plus the human factor.

You would not be financially responsible for the jobs you do. And not being financially responsible will not motivate engineers to build bridges that collapse.

Again, your claim that we won't get engineers for $230k, which is more than what engineer make today, is absurd. And we will also get bridge engineers despite the importance of engineering a bridge correctly.

If you don't want the mental challenge of engineering, you can do a job without the difficulty that pays less.

I read your reply and was ready to respond, but then as I read the last statement about risk, I realize I am discussing a subject that you may have no real world comprehension. But to be fair and just so I do not jump to conclusions, is the question related to risk as an engineer something you do not know about or a sincere question about risk in the profession?

Click the link again. I calculate what the income would be if 100% of available income was paid to workers and the top 2% of workers got paid 4 times more and the 12.3 million workers who did physically or mentally difficult work got paid 2 times more.

All the numbers I used I got from the BEA, the government agency responsible for reporting all our national economic data. These numbers are accepted by every economist and academic institution.

Calling me "man" does not change any of that or provides any rational argument for disagreeing with my calculations.

"For example, if we determined that paying top earners 4 times more than bottom earners is enough incentive and this income distribution plan was democratically approved, that would enable us to pay $460,000 per year to the top 2.5% of all workers; $230,000 per year to the 12.3 million workers who do the mentally or physically difficult work of science, computers, engineering, medicine, construction, mining, and farming; and $115,000 to everyone else."

And yet, you have laid down how you arrived at the base figure of $115,000. Also you have not laid down why the top 2% should get paid 4 times and not say 3 times or 20 times. You have not laid out why 12.3 million worker should get twice of that and not say 4 times or 10 times of that,

Not to mention your plan implies that a construction worker and the civil engineer who is his boss make the same money. Similarly a miner makes the same as a doctor. So basically, while I ace every exam from 1st grade to high school and then get that coveted med school admission and study for years to become a doctor or a specialist in any area; my friend (lets call him Jack) who barely attends school, sleeps through classes, never does homework and finally drops out of school and dopes his way through life; finally he becomes a miner or a construction worker and earns the same as I would after I finish my medical studies. Awesome.

I guess you think those 4 lines suffice as necessary and complete justification for your absurd idea because you seriously lack any training in academia and research.

"And yet, you have laid down how you arrived at the base figure of $115,000. Also you have not laid down why the top 2% should get paid 4 times and not say 3 times or 20 times. You have not laid out why 12.3 million worker should get twice of that and not say 4 times or 10 times of that"

Since the only economic reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to work hard, the only fair way to allocate income is to pay everyone based on how hard they work, not based on how much bargaining power they have. As the socialist saying goes, income should be allocated to each according to their labor.

Differences in income should be limited by law to only what is necessary to get people to do physically difficult or mentally difficult work and to get people to give their maximum effort in performance based jobs.

In that type of economic system, we would use the political process to filter out reasonable, national compensation proposals that complied with the law and then the worker population would vote directly on its approval in a national vote.

If we allocated income in this way, since you would most likely not be able to provide any evidence that shows we need to pay people who do difficult work any more than twice the pay and pay top performers any more than 4 times more in order for income to be an effective incentive, we would be able to pay the top performers $460k, difficult jobs $230k and everyone else $115k.

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"Not to mention your plan implies that a construction worker and the civil engineer who is his boss make the same money"

They are both difficult jobs. They are both working the same amount of hours. So they deserve the same pay.

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"Awesome. "

If you think it is awesome to sleep through academics and become a hard laborer, you are free to do that.

The people who enjoy science and medicine would rather spend their life doing science and medicine than spend their life doing hard labor.

You could not pay me enough to be a miner or construction worker. And I would much rather get paid to go to school than to work in a mine.

how did you arrive at the multpliers. As in why should jobs of one type be paid twice that of another type. Why not 2.5 times or say 3.14159265 times.

2.And why should the base salary be $115k, why not say $114999.98 or $161,803,39?

They are not equally difficult job. A civil engineer who designs the whole bridge taking into consideration all the structural, environmental and cost factors does a far more challenging job that the construction guy who lays down the cement. A guy with a IQ of 80 can become a construction worker. It's not work hours that decide pay.

Looks like you are one construction worker with a hugely misplaced sense of self worth.

You are not reading my comments. The multipliers are explained in my comment. They will be whatever is necessary to get people to work hard. I am merely claiming that you don't have to pay people any more than 2 times to get them to do difficult work. The multiplier may 3 or 4 or higher.

The bottom salary is $115k because that is what the math works out to be when you have $14.5 trillion in available income and you are paying difficult jobs 2 times more and top performers 4 times more. If we paid the top performers 10 times more, the bottom pay would be $100k and the top pay would be $1 million. Math.

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"A civil engineer does a far more challenging job that the construction guy"

Not true. One does a mentally difficult job. One does a physically difficult job. They are both doing difficult jobs and should get paid more than, say, a receptionist or anyone else who does easy work.

If inequality is wrong and liberals hate that, how come they also support mass immigration of unskilled poor people? Any 5th grade math teacher will tell you that doing so worsens income inequality. Do liberals need to repeat 5th grade math class?

So long as we live in an unfair economic system where you are paid based on your bargaining power, increasing immigration will just continue to lower and lower most worker bargaining power which will give management the ability to pay American workers less.

In fairness to liberals, if they had their way, they would pass a law that required all companies to pay all workers a living wage.

I never in any of my posts here claimed that I want everyone to get paid equally.

In my comment above I said the problem is "unfair income inequality."

I believe the only way to fairly allocate income is to allocate it based on hard work. I believe it is fair to pay people more who work harder. But we don't need to pay people 50 to 50,000 times more in order to get people to work hard, so earning those incomes is unfair, unjustified and undeserved.

Please define hard work. Are you talking about physical, mental, or combination. And how would you propose to measure it? For example would a day laborer digging a ditch be judged to work less harder, more harder or equal to a programmer?

People who work physically difficult or mentally difficult work should get paid more. A ditch digger is physically difficult and a programmer is mentally difficult. They would both get paid the same. The 12.3 million workers in science, computers, engineering, medicine, construction, mining, and farming is what I would consider difficult.

We would use the political process to filter out reasonable, national compensation proposals which determine what jobs qualify as difficult and where differences in income are legally required to be limited to just what our best scientific evidence says is necessary to get people to do difficult work and to get people to give their maximum effort in performance based jobs. And then the worker population votes directly on its approval in a national vote.

If we allocated income in this way, we would be able to pay the top performers $460k, difficult jobs $230k and everyone else $115k:

The ditch digger is an unskilled position. The programmer requires education and skill to perform that task. So you would equate that as the same? And you are willing to entrust politicians and government, who have never been able to demonstrate how to run anything efficiently, to determine who works harder. Wow! And how would you force maximum effort from people? Your talking about equality of pay but performance based. And then we all vote on it just so the slackers can get their 115k for doing the minimum? You realize that anyone at the bottom would not vote for anyone else making more than them, and they all would feel like they should at least belong in the middle. And no one can make more than 415k? That is about as unconstitutional as you can get. This absurdity has absolutely no chance of ever working and you know it!

"The ditch digger is an unskilled position. The programmer requires education and skill to perform that task. So you would equate that as the same?"

The ditch digger does physically difficult work. The programmer does mentally difficult work. They both are doing difficult work. People who do difficult work should get paid more than people who do easy work so that there is an incentive to do difficult work.

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"you are willing to entrust politicians and government, who have never been able to demonstrate how to run anything efficiently, to determine who works harder."

So Mitt Romney has never demonstrated an ability to run something efficiently? You need to think more deeply than what you learn in political slogans. The real world is far more complicated.

We can come to a reasonable agreement on what is physically or mentally difficult. And the legal and voting process will be additional checks to make sure our compensation plan is paying people based on hard work only.

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"Your talking about equality of pay but performance based."

That is not what I said at all.

Since the only economic reason for paying one person more than another is to get them to work hard, the only fair way to allocate income is to pay everyone based on how hard they work, not based on how much bargaining power they have. As the socialist saying goes, income should be allocated to each according to their labor.

Differences in income should be limited by law to only what is necessary to get people to do physically difficult or mentally difficult work and to get people to give their maximum effort in performance based jobs.

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"And then we all vote on it just so the slackers can get their 115k for doing the minimum?"

If you are doing the minimum, you are not a slacker.

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"And how would you force maximum effort from people?"

Nobody is forced into doing anything. If you work a performance based job, you will get paid more if you produce more.

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"You realize that anyone at the bottom would not vote for anyone else making more than them, and they all would feel like they should at least belong in the middle."

Those sentences contradict each other. Will people vote not to have others make more? Or will they vote to be in the middle where there are people who make more?

Polls show that people do not want equal pay and believe difficult professions should get paid more. But there is a legal requirement to pay people enough to get them to do the difficult jobs that need to get done. So if we voted a plan that paid everyone equally and we wound up with a shortage of doctors, construction workers and engineers, the court would invalidate that pay plan.

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"And no one can make more than 415k?"

There is no absolute maximum. The maximum depends on how productive the economy is. As the economy grows, so does all the incomes.

And I only give the $115k to $460k as an example. If we voted to approve a plan that paid the top earners 10 times more, the incomes would be $100k to $1 million. So it also depends on what plan was approved.

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"That is about as unconstitutional as you can get."

There is nothing in the constitution that mandates how income should be allocated. Show where it is unconstitutional.

But even if it was unconstitutional, the constitution should then be changed. The constitution was written by the original 1%. It was written by rich, white, slave-owning men who wrote that document with a particular concern about losing their privileged status in society. It should not be anyone's moral compass.

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"This absurdity has absolutely no chance of ever working and you know it!"

I've been read along. Why is how you pay workers the main focus of the trolls? The fact is every business that is publicly traded is being bled by investors who never lift a finger. never, ever. The Independently Wealthy never earn anything, they never do anything, and they shouldn't be allowed to leech for life.

There is a reason why that is called Unearned Income. It is income that they did not earn. It is income they are getting without working for it. It is unfair.

The trolls are not interested in fairness. They want a Darwinian society that concentrates power so that the few rich left standing can rule over everyone else. What is sad is that the trolls are not even among the rich. They have just been suckered by them.

I know, they are little boot-lickers whose only talent has been brown-nosing and hoping the rich would make them the slave that gets to beat the other slaves for them. Its sad and pathetic. They've been tricked into thinking they are going somewhere. In the end the money they have invested will be squandered, they'll end on social security in some old folks home right next to the indigent poor they hate so much. Ah, the good life!

My standard of living is adequate. I live in a safe neighborhood, drive a car that works, eat fresh, clean food, wear clean clothes, enjoy good health, work hard at a job which allows me this lifestyle (union protections), and even have time to have somewhat of a life aside from my 50-60 weekly hours spent on the job. I work too many hours and never go to movies, don't subscribe to cable (no time to enjoy it anyway), don't even own a T.V., but I'm all right with this for a few more years (I've dealt with it over several decades; what's a few more years?). Over the years I have worked and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars just to insure a reasonable retirement. I received help with my college education from my parents, but no other financial help. Contrast this with the very wealthy, who haven't worked this hard -- or smart -- for this many years, haven't put up with continued assaults on union protections and other abuses, can't begin to imagine my contribution to society, and only strive to channel their resources into further distorting their grossly inequitable positions in the world.

I agree the 99% in the U.S. live as the upper 1% live in Liberia. World wealth inequities of this magnitude, in this day and age, with all of the "innovation and entrepreneurial freedom" given the very rich over the last forty years, are, to put it mildly, inexcusable.

You are incredibly presumptuous to suggest I personally donate my income to starving people in Liberia. Instead, you should politically organize others to vote in congressional representatives sympathetic to your alleged position on what we should all do for Liberia. At present, you are part of the problem and not part of the solution. Try to think as an adult might think. Keep your language clean and discourse civil, please.

I don't advocate a system where you have to donate to others. I advocate a system where income is allocated fairly, which means income is allocated based on how hard you work, so that nobody needs the donation of others.

Ideally, this system would be extended throughout the world so that a worker in Liberia gets the same fair treatment and compensation as someone in the US.

"Owned and controlled by the public" is different form being owned by the government ... how, exactly? Hugo Chavez will tell you that 'the people' own Venezuela's oil industry, but 'the people' really means the government. If 'the people' actually owned all of the businesses, then that would be capitalism.

If the government is unelected and they are not accountable to the public and government officials benefit more financially from the companies than the public does, that is government ownership, not public ownership.

The slogans about the 1% and the 99% are explicitly about wealth. Why would you deny that now? Are you prepared to lower your standard of living so that your income can be redistributed to poor people in sub-Saharan Africa?

From the point of view of a person in India or Liberia or Bolivia, WE are the 1%. Wether you're measuring wealth or whether you measure it in power and influence. You don't want wealth equality world-wide. You just want wealth redistribution within the world's 1%. Not to the rest of the 99% of the world.

Not wealth redistribution (unless you're calling something like the impending expiration of the Bush tax cuts "redistribution" ... whereas I'd say it's more about fiscal responsibility and good public policy). Insofar as wealth disparity, it could be addressed in a variety of ways, but studies have shown that societies with less wealth disparity tend to function better (and even its wealthy score better on quality of life metrics). Nonetheless, besides tinkering around the edges (like nudging the top tax rate up 4 or 5%), not too many people here endorsing radical redistribution schemes.

Really, it's not even that our government isn't spending enough money, it's just spending money on all the wrong things. Look at it from a logical perspective. Motor vehicle accidents kill 40,000 Americans each year, more than the total of all terrorist attacks in our entire history. Yet we've erected a massive homeland security infrastructure, enacted draconian laws that invade privacy and erode liberty, under the pretext of a terrorist boogeyman. Our government no longer represents us, as in the people. Maintaining what amounts to a global military empire, is totally inconsistent with the interests of the people. Passing a new law a minute, piles of regulation, bureaucracy, more authoritarian structures, building more prisons, more police, armed with exceedingly heavier weaponry, etc. If you want deregulation, you'd probably want to try and get into the banking business (Wall Street seems to be the only bunch who can write their rules).

As for the rest of us, our Constitution has been hijacked, many of the people running our government and corporations should be wearing pin stripes, and if you're wondering who's speaking up against this insanity, well, here it is, this is it (and at the moment, I don't see anything else fighting on the side of average people). Conservatives are certainly welcome, but try to bring an open mind.

You have a very good point there, I did forget about him. His power was no violence and no compliance. He also had RICH men supporting and helping him. He was a great man and shunned money and choose the poor simple way of living and non-Violence was his main tool.
He also did not fight back when he was arrested over and over again.
If OWS did this when they are arrested then they would get many many more to support them, but instead that fight back when arrested than claim police brutality.

Your raving again. I do not have to ask Glen Beck, i watch him and verify what he says. I am sure you will claim the same thing and you always have the most "flattering things" to say about anyone on the right media and nothing but awe and holy worship from anyone on the left sided media.

Do you deny the funding from Soros? I know that in one way or the other the Kosh Brothers gets money to the right and Soros gets money to the left.

You get sprayed when you resist arrest or resist getting moved.
I have seen alot of them removed peacefully and alot that resist.

It is so nice to see just how blind you are....
Soros is not going to feed the sheep directly. As in wasting the millions to put a bunch of sheep into hotels and paying for room service. He will feed the leaders and the groups that organize all this. You are fully ignorant to believe that he is not helping. But if blinding yourself to that truth helps you sleep better so be. In the end even if this all some how works and the current 1% is brought down then a new 1% will take it place. It has always been this way and always will be this way. the one thing i do know is that no matter what happens you will not like the end game because it will not be dream world utopia that you want.

Yes wealth is all relative to where one lives. So is being poor. If Me and My income were in Mexico I would be fairly well off I do believe, but I don't live there I live here in the good ol USA. Where my income puts food in my mouth and a roof over my head. No extras. So you can not take a statistic like that and have it mean much of anything other than wealth and poverty do not share same standards globally.

Nope, I would have noticed if I owned some politicians! :P I would have noticed if my vote counted. I would have noticed If I could afford to see a dentist about that broken tooth. I would have noticed if I bought a house in a gated community. I'd notice if I lived in a house, even a shabby house.

You want perspective on poverty? Come stay with me for a month. Bring a sleeping bag. I have rented out my bedroom to an unemployed teacher and have been sleeping on the couch for five years. Its a 20 year old two bedroom trailer with no insulation. But we can find you a spot for a sleeping bag. Me thinks you'd slit your throat before spending a month in poverty with us. Just saying, you don't have to look far to see poverty. You have to get really creative to hide it from yourself though. That exactly what this. BS. I could go to a really poor country and get myself a hut built, plant a garden and raise some chickens and in many ways achieve the ability to have a nice life. Of course my success wouldn't rest on owning an iphone or watching a color TV. or even a washer and dryer. I could become self-sufficient and wouldn't have a 30 mortgage on my hut. That is until Globalization reached me, jacked my taxes all to hell and forced me to drive to town to get money.

While I am in the top 15% of the world...I am check to check after paying for my student loan and other bills....Not living the rich life here-i wish that things were more on par so that 1 out of 4 kids did not go to bed hungry in this country.

There are over 2 Billion people who live on less than $1.25 per day. However, wealth cannot be measured by dollar value alone. Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) must be considered. I agree that greed, corruption and waste must be ended. We must all make sacrifices.

The point is well taken. Equalize income worldwide and some goes up, some comes down. We're all in the 1% compared to the rest of the world, so ours would be coming down a lot. I've been to Africa and seen it first hand, and I can tell you that, even a very poor American is wealthy by the standards there. Average worldwide yearly income is only about $7,000 per person. I wonder who in OWS would be prepared to take that big hit in income and lifestyle and make do on $7,000 in the name of true equality and solidarity with the poor and the workers of the world?

No matter how you slice it, when it comes to income and wealth in America the rich get most of the pie and the rest get the leftovers. The numbers are shocking. Today the top 1 percent of Americans control 43 percent of the financial wealth (see the pie chart below) while the bottom 80 percent control only 7 percent of the wealth. Incredibly, the wealthiest 400 Americans have the same combined wealth as the poorest half of Americans -- over 150 million people.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

Where Has All the Money Gone?

This may be the one of the most important graphs you will ever see. It show the reason for the decline of the American middle class -- how the rich have become so much richer in the last 30 years and why the rest of us have been left behind: (Continued)

In the 1990s, economists began producing a string of studies documenting rising income inequality in the United States. The notion became one that Democrats and liberal activists cited with increasing frequency through the following decade, in particular in connection with the debate over the Bush-era tax cuts.

But the idea did not take a central place on the national stage until the fall of 2011, when it was championed by a diffuse group of activists who began a protest called Occupy Wall Street. Their demonstrations were aimed at corporate greed, the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations and, especially, income inequality in America.

In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2010).

The gap between rich and poor in the U.S. is bigger than at any time since the 1920s. Is that really what most Americans want?
The gap between the wealthiest Americans and the poorest is bigger than at any time since the 1920s — just before the Depression. According to an analysis this year by Edward Wolff of New York University, the top 20% of wealthy individuals own about 85% of the wealth, while the bottom 40% own very near 0%. Many in that bottom 40% not only have no assets, they have negative net wealth.
A gap this pronounced raises the politically divisive question of whether there is a need for wealth redistribution in the United States. This central question underlies such hot-button issues as whether the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire and whether the government should provide more assistance to the poor. But before those issues can be addressed, it’s important to understand how Americans feel about the country’s increasing economic polarity.
We recently asked a representative sample of more than 5,000 Americans (young and old, men and women, rich and poor, liberal and conservative) to answer two questions. They first were asked to estimate the current level of wealth inequality in the United States, and then they were asked about what they saw as an ideal level of wealth inequality.

Cenk Uygur asked Sen. Bernie Sanders how we mobilize workers on a national scale and not just in Wisconsin and a few other states where we're seeing these protests. Bernie didn't have a direct answer for Cenk but laid out what the stakes are if we don't.

SANDERS: What we have to understand is this is not just Wisconsin. This is part of the concerted attack on the middle class and working families of this country by the very wealthiest people in America, the Koch brothers and many others. And you're also right in suggesting that if you look at the end game, what are you talking about?
You're talking about the end of Social Security, privatization of Social Security, massive cuts and privatization of Medicare, major cuts in Medicaid. You're talking about over a period of time, the end of unemployment compensation, the end of the minimum wage or lowering the minimum wage.
What these guys want is to return us to the 1920's when working people had virtually no rights to organize or to earn a decent living. Bottom line today is the top 1% earn more income than the bottom 50%. The top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%. That gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider.
And what the wealthiest people in the country are doing are using their resources to make the attack against the middle class even stronger. They want the destruction of the middle class and almost all wealth in this country to go to the people on top.

Cenk and Bernie also discussed whether the Democratic Party has figured out that it might not be the best strategy for them to abandon their base and the union movement and the importance of the existence of unions which don't only raise the wages and benefits for unionized workers, but everyone else as well.

Unfortunately these bought and sold politicians don't do the right thing until they're pushed. The best thing we can do is take to the streets and remind all of them who they're supposed to be representing. MoveOn is sponsoring rallies across the country Saturday for anyone that would like to participate.

When 1% have the majority of wealth and income it is a detriment to the rest of the country, the 99%. America is not a casino where the winner (however he wins) takes all, this a country for and by all Americans.

Nice filibuster. I'm going to take your last paragraph and edit it to be relevant to the original post:

When 1% have the majority of wealth and income it is a detriment to the rest of the world, the 99%. Earth is not a casino where the winner (however he wins) takes all, this a planet for and by all humans.

Are you willing to have your wealth redistributed to poor people all over the world?

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2.

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3.

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4.

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5.

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6.

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7.

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8.

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10.

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11.

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13.

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Lets put it this way. Based on the world every single person that owns a computer is RICH. WE all here on the left, middle, right are part of the 1%. What we call the 1% is based on your point of view.

totally agreed. I grew up going to bed hungry some nights, but guess what, I didn't suffer from malnutrition. I also wasn't put into a child labor sweatshop. all in all, being a poor kid in america is much better than being a poor kind in most of the world.